Fighting capitalist-made starvation, one kitchen at a time

HAITI— At a birthday celebration of a child a mother asked: “In these times of misery, how can anyone have the courage to set off fireworks.” This mother knows how much fireworks cost. But it was a small opportunity to try to recapture some normality in this country where a vast number of workers and their children are starving. These “times of misery” are the direct result of the racist super-exploitation of capitalism. It is repeated millions of times worldwide. The “small opportunity” is a tiny glimpse of workers organizing together to help each other —that’s our communist future.

Capitalism starves workers
Since the worsening of the socio-economic crisis here, capitalist inequalities are manifesting themselves in a more glaring and horrifying way each day (see editorial, page 2). The bosses use the benign term “food insecurity” to describe a situation that means nothing less than starvation, and today it is ravaging more than half of the workers of Haiti. Because of rampant inflation and gangs, armed and supported by the bourgeoisie to terrorize the masses, provisions scarcely reach the hungry, whether in the cities, the towns or the rural areas.

In one locality called Pòsenlwi (Port St-Louis), long forgotten by the government, some workers engage in markedly rudimentary fishing, which cannot feed their families. There are no other means to earn a living.

Workers organize collectively
The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) here does not remain indifferent to this situation. Through contributions from friends and comrades of PLP in the U.S., we organized a community kitchen in this locality. Along with workers and students of the district, we prepared large pots of food, one so big the people nicknamed it “The Family.”

“It’s an event!” exclaimed one of the three cooks: “Bagay yo pa bon pou moun yo ditou non…Sak pi di a, etan map fè sòs la, manje a poko menm fin kwit, preske tout moun gentan vini avèk veso yo pou yo ka pran manje.” (“Things are not good for the people at all... The worst thing is, while I’m making the sauce, the food isn’t even finished cooking, almost everyone has already come with their dishes to eat.”)

A hot meal is considered a luxury. And that’s because this population is a victim of capitalism run wild, a corrupt, greedy and cruel system. What makes us all even angrier is that the bourgeoisie is getting fatter on the backs of the masses here while we watch our children starve. And that’s what we talked about as we shared the shopping, cooking and serving of the food: How the profit system serves a small class of parasites, which exploits us to eat well off our labor. Our class creates all value, but our labor is stolen by the exploiters. The bosses and their allies across the world use racism, sexism and nationalism to super-exploit some while exploiting all.

Stocking up class solidarity for a revolutionary feast
But our modest effort is beginning to make the work of the bourgeoisie harder. We are putting the lie to the saying “Chak koukouy klere pou je w.” (“Everyone for themself.”) The PLP always promotes and encourages class solidarity, not bourgeois humanitarianism and even less charity. It is sharing between brothers and sisters of the working class.

This community kitchen was organized under the leadership of a new young comrade who lives here. This comrade gives leadership to ideological struggle as well as practical work, as he and other young comrades organize local “ti lekòl yo” (freedom school-like study-action groups) in the areas where they were raised, to bring revolutionary communist ideas and practice to the rural working class.

Join us in building an international communist movement to fight hunger caused by greedy capitalism and individualism. As the International, our communist anthem, states, “The international working class shall be the human race.”